The grandfather of all browser MMOs, Runescape has been around for a very long time: the first beta release was in 2001. In 2008, the Guinness Book of World Records gave Runescape the title of “World’s Most Popular Free MMORPGThe 10 Greatest Free MMORPGs To Start Playing NowThe 10 Greatest Free MMORPGs To Start Playing NowThe landscape of MMORPG gaming has never been better than it is today. Some may pine for the good old days when games like Ultima Online, Everquest, and Dark Age of Camelot dominated the scene,...Read More,” as well as “Most Frequently Updated Game.” Like most fantasy MMORPGs, you’ll choose skills to level up, collect armor and weapons, explore dungeons, and slay monsters to get loot. But not everything is hack-and-slash; you can focus on gathering or artisanal skills as well, helping you create useful items.

While Runescape remains completely free, you can also pay to upgrade your membership; for $10 per month, $26 for three months, or $90 for a year, you’ll get access to exclusive skills, a vastly larger world, more enemies, different bosses, and a slew of new equipment and outfits.

Another fantasy MMORPG, Drakensang has a distinctly more Diablo-like feel than Runescape. Choose a Ranger, Steam Mechanicus, Dragonknight, or Spellweaver and set off into the world of Dracania to slay dragons, battle monsters, and find ultra-powerful weapons, armor, and item sets. Dracania is a medieval place, so if you’re into that sort of aesthetic, Drakensang will be a great choice.

Although there are microtransactions which will help you progress through the story, the game is free to play, so you can grind it out without spending any real money. Some people find the regular pressure to pay a bit annoying, but others have made it very far through the game without paying any money.

If you’re looking for something a bit lighter than Drakensang or Runescape, Spiral Knights is a great choice. With cutesy graphics and a light-hearted tone, this game is a bit easier to play casually than many MMORPGs out there. The Spiral Knights, an alien race, have crashed on a planet called Cradle, and must fight their way to the core of the planet in search of an energy source. Unfortunately, that energy is guarded by hordes of monsters and a constantly changing mechanical dungeon called the Clockworks.

Like most of the other games on this list, you can pay real money to get better equipment faster and take on higher-level monsters, but there’s no in-game advertising in Spiral Knights, keeping the microtransaction pressure to a minimum. Some people find the game to be similar to Zelda on numerous levels, making this a good choice for fans of that series.

As of 2009, there were 30 million AQ accounts, making this a very popular option for 2D fantasy MMORPG fans. Choose a warrior, mage, rogue, or healer, and venture off through the world, learning advanced skills, gaining reputation, and adding new types of classes to your character. The cartoony graphics and lack of blood and gore make this a good option for kids5 Children's Video Games That You'll Enjoy Too5 Children's Video Games That You'll Enjoy TooJust like you enjoy that animated movie as much as the kids it was made for, the world of video games has some great titles that appeal across ages.Read More. There are even “kid-safe” servers for kids under 13, where chatting can only take place from drop-down menus.

AQ is free to play, but you will be forced to watch a few ads—fortunately, they only pop up when you die. If you become a Legendary member, however, you’ll get access to over 3,000 Legend-only weapons, items, areas, bosses, and new classes. A three-month subscription is $20, or you can get an entire year for $60.

Not into the futuristic sci-fi theme? Pirates offers a more classic setup, where you’ll build up a Haven, establish your pirate fleet, and plunder the seven seas for loot and infamy. Harvest lumber and gold, distill rum (very important!), pillage shipwrecks, and take on other pirate fleets to become the baddest pirate of them all. You can also spend time working through an impressively large technology tree, which includes things like sword-fighting, gunpowder, mathematics, trade, and even flight. Join a brotherhood and get to it!

Enough strategizing—it’s time to shoot stuff. There’s not much preamble to this game; you’re teleported by Oryx, the Mad God (not to be confused with Oryx, the Taken King of Destiny fame) to his realm to be consumed by his minions. Team up with other players, let the bullets fly, and survive! Once you’ve defeated enough minions, Oryx will show up—but once you’ve killed him, there’s plenty more to do. Explore the Shatters, a super-hard dungeon experience, collect legendary loot, and try to get the highest stats. Just don’t die: once you’re dead, that character is gone forever, and you’ll need to start over.

Did you know that there are text-based MMOs? Urban Dead is a great way to get introduced to the fascinating genre; you’ll start as a human, and you need to survive zombie attacks. If you get killed off, you’ll come back as a zombie unless someone can heal you. Explore the city, find useful items, and stay alive as long as possible. And don’t forget that you can be killed off even when you’re logged out, so be sure to find a safe place before you quit for the day (or your Action Points are depleted)!

Urban Dead is free. Totally free. That’s it. If you want to give money to the developer, you can buy some UD merch. Finally! A totally free online MMO.

What Are Your Favorite Free MMOs?

These eight games are great free MMOs that you can play in your browser, but there are plenty more out there. What are your favorites? Share your favorite fantasy, post-apocalyptic, medieval, science-fiction, or any other kind of MMOs in the comments so we can all try them out!

Dann is MakeUseOf's Creative editor. After an MA (and most of a PhD) in psycholinguistics, he fully committed to digital and print journalism. With over 10 years of professional writing experience, he's written about everything from cognitive science to mountain biking.